


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

by Cypreus



Series: The Changing Seasons [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Rescue, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 04:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20539790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cypreus/pseuds/Cypreus
Summary: Dimitri wins.But the ghosts in his head won't leave him be.





	To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Suicidal thoughts and attempt. It's not overly explicit but please be warned that it is there and be please mindful of yourself if you do wish to continue.

He worries for his friend. Of course he does. Even though the younger man had always been stronger, Sylvain knows physical strength is nothing in the face of a fragile heart. The prince, always soft, always kind, is missing. 

Dimitri had been here earlier, absently scratching at the wooden table with the tip of a dagger. It’s familiar. One he’s seen the prince wield in his younger years. Back when the boy barely knew how to hold a lance. One day it was gone, the prince claiming to have given it away. Sylvain’s an idiot but he knows enough. Sees enough to remember that the next time he saw the prince’s beloved blade, it was attached to the imperial princess. And the girl refused to let it out of her sight.

Sylvain’s an idiot, but he’s not blind to the lost look in the prince’s remaining eye. He’s familiar with the grief of loss. Of that unending feeling of floating unaware like wandering in the dark. 

He had been right here, unable to turn his gaze away as his liege, his lifelong friend stopped suddenly. Staring at the dagger in hand as if he didn’t know it was there. The manic look of glee in his eye softening into the same fond gaze that had been ever present when he had been younger, innocent. When he had gazed at his friends, his family. All of them beloved. All of them dead.

There used to be five of them. Glenn and Sylvain, the older brothers of the bunch; Dimitri, Felix and Ingrid tagging along behind them. But Glenn is gone, has been gone for a long time now. Perhaps, Dimitri had gone along with him.

The prince has been missing all night and Felix is in a blind panic. His dark haired friend yelling up and down the monastery, threatening the life of his future king. His voice is near to breaking, threatening tears as his cocksure confidence starts to wane. His calm nonchalance gone with the daylight.

“If I find you dead I’ll bring you back to life and kill you!”

None here have had their sleep. None here have any idea where the prince might wander. Whereas he used to be able to find him so easily. Usually in the training room. Maybe the sparring arena. Sometimes the library. The stables. Even when he’s hiding in some nook in the most obscure part of the castle, he’d find him.

Sylvain has to admit defeat. Maybe he just doesn’t know the prince any more.

  
  
  
  
  


He feels the ghost of a little girl settle beside him. Toffee coloured pigtails shimmering bronze in the sunset. She doesn’t smile, and he is forced to remember the day they first met. A hard look in her soft face. She had frightened him with her stern frown and pouting lips.

He smiles.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m sorry. Am I not allowed?” 

He is amused by her antics now. How childish they had both been. He doesn’t lose his smile though his heart intends to break with the torrent of memories.

“I smile because I remember you.”

“Am I one of your ghosts now?”

He sighs. “I suppose.”

She hums, thoughtful, her legs swinging beneath her. “One of your friends said the more loved a person was, the stronger their hold on the living. The voices of your friends haunted you for years because you loved them all.” The little ghost makes the observation with a stern look, in this she hasn’t changed at all. 

Ah yes, an overheard conversation between Rodrigue and the Professor. They talked about Glenn. They talked about him, the prince in his insanity. The prince in his mad scramble for vengeance. Vengeance.

“I have silenced the cries of my loved ones with the death of their killer. All my ghosts are at peace now.” He looks at the little girl. “Save for one.”

She faces him with wide earnest eyes. “Do I haunt you now too?” A crease between her brows and a frown on her lips. His heart breaks. She looks the same as she always had in his memories. “I thought you hated me.”

“I could never hate you. I felt strongly.” He looks down at his hands. “I didn’t know what it meant.”

“Will you do the same for me? Will you take vengeance for me too?”

He stares at her for a moment in the dark, the stars have come out of hiding. Time feels so…

“Dimitri. Do you know who killed me?”

His body feels so sluggish.

“Yes.”

His mind is at war.

“Do you have any love for my murderer?”

His heart is at war.

“No. He is just another beast that deserves death.”

Has been for a number of years now.

“Do you have any love for me?”

_ Love? _

“I have always loved you. Even before I knew who you were, you have always had a hold on me. You-”

Hair, pure white shimmering silver under the light of the moon. A friend for as long as she had allowed it. He would follow her lead. Her. Always her.

“You were my most treasured friend.”

She takes hold of his hand, time stops and he feels like a child again. All at once he sees her, his friend, his sister, his enemy. He remembers dancing until sunset as she counts one-two-three, one-two-three,  _ you’re supposed to lead with your right foot, Dimitri _ . He remembers the feeling of ice cold dread when he finds out just who she is, his stepmother smiling at him kindly. And the feeling of unspeakable hatred - unspeakable heartbreak - when he finds out what she’s done. She exists here in his head. In his heart. He promised his ghosts they’d have her head but still she keeps existing. Their cries of agony rage against his skull.

“Your place in my heart angers the dead. If I kill your murderer, your call for vengeance will be fulfilled. Perhaps then, the voices of the dead will finally have their rest.”

He can already hear Felix reprimanding him. Ingrid, telling him to rest. Sylvain trying to distract him with his usual nonsense. 

But he looks to  _ her _ and finds the end. Only the end.

Beautiful hair shimmering gold in the sunrise.  _ Is it daylight already?  _ The sky is turning red and pink and gold. To die under this sky in the arms of her ghost would be beauty beyond imagining for one so undeserving as him. Yes, this is Edelgard, silken hair trapped under the weight of golden horns. No, this is El, trapped under the weight of her golden destiny. He will avenge her. He must.

He blinks and a dagger is in his hand. He knows this one. He holds it like it belongs there.

Sylvain moves without thinking. Funny how his desire to swoop in like a dashing knight might just be the thing that saves his friend’s life. Pain blooms in his hand. Right, the dagger. In strength alone he’d never be able to stop Dimitri’s hands from their path. So he grips the blade tightly, a trickle of red slipping through his fingers. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he thrusts the dagger away from them. It clatters useless on the floor, the sound too loud in this too quiet scene. Their breaths breaking the still morning air.

“They refuse to be silent.”

Dimitri speaks first. His watery voice matching the dread in Sylvain’s heart.

“It should be over.”

He holds the younger man closer and whispers to his back. “It is. It’s over.”

“Then why-” His voice breaks. “I can still hear her voice. She-” He chokes on a sob and Sylvain can feel him trembling. He turns Dimitri around in his arms, he’s light. Barely eating, barely sleeping. Thin underneath all his hulking armour.

His friend is still so young with tears streaming down his cheeks. A young boy crying for his family, for everyone he had loved. Still loves. And the boy loves too much, loves too hard. Love, Sylvain knows, is such a fragile thing. And Dimitri’s heart full of love is so easily shattered. It breaks even his heart, him, Sylvain who cares little for anything. He hushes the boy like when they were children. 

“It’s alright. It’s alright.” He briefly hears the beating wings of a pegasus, hooves landing, Felix and Ingrid rushing in to view.

Old friends look upon the sight of monstrous grief. The beast wails as his ghosts consume his mind. 

“Let it out Dima. Just let it out.” Sylvain holds him tighter and places his lips on the crown of his friend’s head.

Their would-be king clings to their red haired friend. All the world’s grief overflowing from the prince’s fragile heart. Nine years of silence now shattered by the cries of a broken mind. In all these nine years, Sylvain has never seen grief crash over the young man like water over a broken dam. Sylvain remembers his grief. The young prince on the infirmary bed recovering from his injuries. By the time they reached him, he was already empty.

He feels a hand, small and cold from flying in the cold air through the whole night. Ingrid wraps her arms around the two of them, arms circled tightly trying to engulf them both, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Felix to the other side falling on his knees, silent tears cascading down his face as he holds them all close.

They stay like this until the prince regains his mind. He pulls away, but the arms of his friends won’t let him leave. In his face is horror and shame.

“It’s over. I-” 

He speaks with voice quivering, laden with guilt and remorse. 

“I win.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Dimitri wins the silence of his ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> AKA Dimitri confronts his feelings
> 
> It is a tragic shame that Sylvain and Dimitri can’t even get an A support.
> 
> I’ve had a ‘Sylvain is surprisingly wise’ headcanon since we found out he’s a flirt so I went into the game with high hopes for him. Let me tell you… he does not disappoint. He’s still an idiot who flirts with everything that moves but he’s so perceptive.
> 
> Title from Hamlet's famous soliloquy


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